There were five of them. What few ninja he had left surged ahead as Muji and his group found the sewer exit. The lead ninja bent to one knee and formed a cup with his hands. The warrior behind him stepped into the handhold and was boosted up to gain a few latter rungs of extra speed.

It didn’t take but a few moments for the ninja to make it to the top, whereupon he slid the cover over slightly, listened for enemy movement, and then upon finding none, removed the lid completely.

The chorus of the skirmish in the streets overhead washed into the sewers. After the ninja, Muji was the first to climb the later. He must have seemed slow and lumbering, but in reality he was simply massive.

He reached out, putting his elbows out to give himself leverage as he pushed himself out of the manhole. His samurai came directly behind him, one at a time. The pouring of soldiers into the back alley seemed monumentally slow when the streets a few machiyas ahead of them were being stained with the blood of his warriors.

The alley was empty behind the enemy’s front where they were defending against Sakuraichi’s attack.

“Ten,” one of the ninja counted, watching each man as he exited the sewers with the help of his comrades, who were giving them a hand to speed them along. “Forty more,” the ninja added quickly, as if Muji couldn’t count.

Once their forces reached fifty men in this alley, they were to attack from that flanking position. It would collapse the enemy’s front. They were outnumbered, but fortunately this detachment of the enemy was cut off from the main force, so through superior tactics, could be destroyed.

“Twenty,” the ninja counted. “Thirty more.”

Muji paced. His men, waiting as he was, watching him warily.

The veteran of nearly a score of battles, the Masked Demon was more impatient than anxious. As soon as the ninja began to count down individual men exiting the sewer at forty one, Muji gave the order to march.

He exited the alley with forty one men at his back. The other nine would catch up. The enemy was wholly unprepared for their flanking maneuver, but Muji stopped as he noticed the silhouettes of enemy archers on the rooftops. He turned, found his four ninja close by, slinking in the shadows, as was their element, and simply motioned with his hands, indicating the enemies they were to kill.

The black-clad warriors wasted no time. They lurched toward the buildings, using anything available to climb, such as window depressions, drain pipes, even vine hangings.

Without waiting for them to take out their targets, Muji unsheathed his katana, raised it into the air as he turned to his detachment. He motioned the correct hand signals and his men quickly formed a file two men deep.

As soon as his force was prepared for attack—an enemy archer slammed into the cobbled stones at his feet, a sickly crunch of bone and flesh—he gave the order and rushed for the enemy.

Before crashing into their flank he let out the most ferocious war cry possible, one worthy of the Masked Demon as his katana shrieked through leather and scale and flesh in the dim light of the early grey morning.